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Unification Minister Kim Yeon-chul with National Intelligence Agency Director Suh Hoon prepare to partake in a meeting of the implementation committee of the Panmunjom Declaration at the Blue House on Apr. 25. (Kim Jung-hyo

On June 9, South Korean Unification Minister Kim Yeon-chul said that “neither optimism nor pessimism are currently warranted” regarding the idea of holding a fourth inter-Korean summit.

“There’s been a great need to hold a North Korea-US summit since the Hanoi summit, and that’s also why President Moon Jae-in proposed an inter-Korean summit,” Kim said during an appearance on KBS’ “Sunday Diagnosis” program.

Kim also responded to the argument that the best time to hold a narrowly focused inter-Korean summit would be before US President Donald Trump visits South Korea at the end of June. “To be sure, holding the summit before Trump’s visit would be best. But the situation is too challenging to be very optimistic about that,” Kim said.

“The president’s direct objective in proposing an [inter-Korean] summit was to bring about a North Korea-US summit. Right now, the government needs to be doing everything in its power to quickly resume North Korea-US summit diplomacy.”

Kim emphasized that “North Korea and the US don’t have a single mountain to get over in their negotiations — there’s an entire mountain range. While there are still disagreements [between North Korea and the US] on specific issues, overall they’re in the process of slowly finding common ground.”

“Right now, we’re looking into providing support through international organizations,” Kim said in regard to the question of food aid for North Korea.

When asked whether the aid would consist of rice or other grains, Kim gave a roundabout answer: “We have about 1.3 million tons of leftover rice. We’re currently spending more than 480 billion won each year just in storage costs for that rice. I’d appreciate it if the public would take that into account.”

By Lee Je-hun, senior staff writer

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